


Waiting in the Wings

by thechavanator



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, In Which The Author Projects Onto Izumi A Bit Too Much, Mild Angst, and the implication of like the entire rest of the company tbh, brief appearance by like one (1) random OC, brief appearances by masumi and itaru and citron, mankai loves their director y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechavanator/pseuds/thechavanator
Summary: Did they ever intend to let her on stage to begin with? Or had they always planned some excuse to keep her out of the spotlight?Or: Izumi thinks back to a college show and Mankai decides their director deserves a little extra appreciation.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 50





	Waiting in the Wings

**Author's Note:**

> I was doing a word-prompt a day for December - it didn't work out, because December Sure Was A Month - and one of them was "wait" and this idea, sprung into being. And even though that challenge fell through, I still really wanted to write this.
> 
> I've mentioned it a few times on both tumblr and twitter, I think, but I was a theater major in college, and Izumi's whole "failed actor" thing hits really close to home (and also occasionally REALLY throws me for a loop during practice chats, _Sakyo_. You ever get asked about returning to acting, _the thing you majored in,_ by a fictional fucking tsundere? It is one hell of an experience). So uh. This spawned.
> 
> Izumi's experience here is based on something that happened in my capstone class, though the details have been changed slightly for easier understanding and for the slightest veneer of "people who knew me at the time won't be able to tell who I am". Everyone I have talked to about it agrees that it was bullshit. _I_ agree that it was bullshit. Still a little grumpy about it, tbh.
> 
> Connected slightly to [this other prompt](https://thechavanator.tumblr.com/post/636992264163442688/chels-promptcember-day-8-process) I did in December, though you don't have to read that to get this, of course.
> 
> (I'M SORRY IF THE TENSE CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE IS JARRING FLASHBACK WRITING IS HARD)

Izumi glances up at the bundle of pages—Spring Troupe’s latest play script, she presumes—to find that Tsuzuru is  _ not _ the one offering them this time.

“He’s sleeping,” Masumi explains before she has the chance to ask. “Said that he needed to talk to you about it and figured he’d pass out first.”

She laughs, kindly tuning out his usual love-struck commentary (some things never change, it seems) in favor of examining the script that made its way into her hands.  _ Sleeping Beauty, _ huh…

She’s all too familiar with this story: not the script itself of course (the gods of the theater would smite her themselves if she ever insinuated that Tsuzuru wrote something derivative), but the fairy tale, the concept of performing it in front of an audience, is far from foreign.

Well, no time for reminiscing, she figures, folding back the first page. She might as well try to knock this out before Tsuzuru emerges from his post-writing coma.

She flips through the script, trying to keep her focus on the tweaks Tsuzuru made to the story, but, of course, she finds her mind wandering back to days gone by. When she was an actor—or, really, trying to be an actor—herself.

\---

“Hey, Izumi, you ready to go on today?”

Izumi dropped her bag on the lobby floor, bottles of stage makeup gently clacking against each other as they settled. “Eh?”

“Yuka texted me first thing this morning; she came down with something,” Haruka replied, barely even looking up from her phone. “So obviously she can’t go on today.”  _ Now _ she looked up, fixing Izumi with a strange look. “You mean they didn’t tell you?”

Izumi shook her head. As her class’ designated swing, of course, she was expected to go on at a moment’s notice, but for the  _ lead? _ For Sleeping Beauty herself? Something was  _ definitely _ up if neither the director nor the stage manager gave her a call.

“I’d go talk to them then,” Haruka told her, once more focused on her phone.

Izumi grabbed her bag, set on doing exactly that as she wandered the theater building. Seriously, this was  _ really _ weird; if she was going on, she needed more time to prepare—between pinning the costume for the day and ensuring that she had her blocking right—and it  _ definitely _ wasn’t like Yuka to call out on such short notice.

Her phone buzzed, jolting her from her thoughts. Seemed the director had beaten her to the punch.

**Yuka’s sick today,** he’d sent to the company.  **We’ll have to call off tonight’s show. Not enough time to adjust the costume.**

Her shoulders slumped.  _ Bullshit,  _ she thought, more than a little bitter; how long would it take just to put some pins in?

Haruka wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Whoa, that’s uncool. You totally could have gone on.”

Izumi forced a smile. It was bad enough that she didn’t make the main cast, but apparently they’d deemed her so bad that they’d rather cancel a show—and refund tickets, at that—than put her in for one night.

Did they ever intend to let her on stage to begin with? Or had they always planned some excuse to keep her out of the spotlight?

\---

“Uh, director?”

Izumi startles, glancing wildly for the source of the voice in her ear. Oh, it’s just Tsuzuru, apparently  _ equally _ startled as he tries to fight off the remnants of sleep.

She glances back down at her script; she’s still on page seven. So much for reading through it while he slept…

“Oh, uh, sorry, Tsuzuru!” She grins sheepishly, trying to hide her melancholy. (She’s a director now, she ought not whine about how she never really became an actor…) “I guess I lost track of time…”

He shakes his head. “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’m up earlier than expected anyway.” (Izumi fights the urge to get one of the other company members to drag him back to his room. She’s tried that before. It doesn’t work.) He grabs the script out of her hands, turning back to the first page. “Besides, I really just need you to look at one thing.”

He points at the dramatis personae, and Izumi notices for the first time that there are seven character names there. Had she really been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d missed that?

“Oh, you want us to bring in an ensemble member for a larger role?” she asks, wrinkling her eyebrows as she tries to figure out who might be best. “Or one of the other troupe members?”

“Actually,” he begins, clearly struggling to word whatever’s on his mind, “we had something different in mind.”

“‘We’?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. Has her little band of actors been plotting something behind her back? Who’s supposed to be the director here?

He nods. “I was talking to the rest of Spring Troupe, and a few of the other company members.” He pauses, searching for the right words. “You were an actor, right?”

Izumi laughs. “Eh, I tried to be one. But that was a long time ago.” Okay, maybe only a few years back, but as exciting and as busy as Mankai’s been, her time as an actor may as well have been long ago.

Tsuzuru scowls at her, and for a moment she thinks he’s about to tell her off; instead, his expression softens as he taps the empty space next to the role list. “Well, we need someone to play the princess, and you do a lot for us. We thought...I think Sakuya said you called it ‘blooming,’ when we’re showing our best selves on stage?”

He waits for her affirmation before continuing. “Well, we thought you deserve the chance to bloom, too. So, if you want, we’d love for you to take on the role of the princess.”

Izumi freezes. Wow, that was  _ far _ from what she had expected.

“I-it’s not too many lines,” Tsuzuru adds, clearly misinterpreting her response (or lack thereof), “since she’s sleeping for most of the play, and you don’t even have to be onstage if you don’t want to be.”

Izumi attempts to hold back her tears (she  _ really _ doesn’t want Tsuzuru to lapse into Caretaker Mode while he’s still theoretically ten seconds from passing out, and if he sees her crying that will  _ definitely _ set that off). “No, I...I’d be honored, honestly! If you’re willing to work with a ham like me, anyway.”

“Well, we managed to make an actor out of Itaru,” Tsuzuru jokes (to the faint protests of Spring Troupe’s favorite gamer, who has  _ definitely _ been listening in). “And Citron, for that matter.” (Citron laughs, unphased as ever.) “But if you’re really worried, we can always get Yuzo to help.”

Izumi shudders at the thought. But he’s got a point; if anyone can knock out her hammy acting tendencies, it’s  _ definitely _ Yuzo.

“Thank you,” she finally mumbles, wiping away a few tears that dared to escape. “All of you. Including the little eavesdroppers.”

She hears a prolonged sigh that sounds like Chikage as the door to the lounge slams against the wall and a whole host of actors pours in, chattering away as always. “I tried to warn you all that she’d notice us.” (Definitely Chikage.)

Izumi’s never felt underappreciated here, no; all of her actors show their love in so many ways. But in all her time here, all her time involved in theater at all, really, her heart has never felt so full.

(She takes her first bow on Mankai’s stage, weeks later, and as Spring Troupe crushes her in a hug, she takes it back:  _ now  _ her heart has never been more full.)

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: thechavanator  
> twitter: dqChellion  
> discord: Chel!#2061
> 
> I just think Izumi should maybe get to act a little, too.
> 
> (I have plotted this entire fictional play and tragically (or thankfully?) no one gets to kiss Izumi; the curse is lifted by the lead fairy making friends with the "evil" fairy, lmao)


End file.
